


Picnic At The Mountains of Madness

by Bouzingo



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Disabled Character of Color, Fanny Bryce Approximation Syndrome, Genderqueer Character, M/M, Mountain Believing, POV Carlos, Personal Reasons, Picnic, Positive Cecilos Fic Drive, Pre-Relationship, Road Trips, awkward dorks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-03-31
Packaged: 2018-01-17 18:18:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1397776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bouzingo/pseuds/Bouzingo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos decides to take Cecil and some interns over to a nearby mountain. His motives are purely scientific. Made for the Positive Cecilos Fic Drive; 100% goodhearted slice of life/fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Picnic At The Mountains of Madness

“Is this a hybrid?” Cecil asked, jiggling his knee.

“Uh, yeah,” Carlos said, and readjusted his rearview mirror.

“How environmentally mindful!” Cecil said, and Carlos felt his face heat up.

Through the rearview mirror, he could see the backseat, covered in scientific equipment and an overlarge picnic basket. And, he could see the car driving behind them, a jalopy that was apparently the property of the radio station and affectionately named the Rust Bucket. Interns Jo and Marsha decided to accompany them on their trip out.

Upon focusing back on the highway, his brow furrowed. The road _seemed_ clear, but there was a report on the traffic today that made Carlos seriously reconsider postponing this little excursion. But Cecil seemed fairly sedate, camera and station ID hanging around his neck. He’d put his recording equipment in the Rust Bucket with Interns Jo and Marsha, but he had his microphone, and was fiddling with its cord. Carlos hadn’t asked about what he planned on recording.

“So where are we going?” Cecil asked. It was a testament to his trustful nature that he had never actually asked this question when Carlos asked him to come.

“I thought I might take a look at the area surrounding Night Vale for comparative data,” Carlos said. “There’s a national park a few miles away.”

It was not a lie; he’d been meaning to check out surrounding area for a couple weeks now. But a certain radio broadcast had finally giving him the push he needed to leave the town, if only for a day.

Carlos didn’t claim to know a lot (he was a scientist after all; his field was really quite narrow), but if there was one thing he did know it was that mountains were verifiably real, and quite numerous. He climbed mountains. He’d seen them from afar. Mountains were real, though his definition of real was somewhat fluid these days.

Being a mountain denier seemed nonsensical, even in Night Vale. So Carlos invited Cecil for a Sunday out. He explained right away that it wasn’t for personal reasons, and thankfully Cecil didn’t seem at all put out. And, if Carlos was being truthful to himself, this trip was a _little bit_ for personal reasons. He didn’t really do science on Sundays.

They drove in silence for a while, and then Cecil turned on the radio and fiddled with the dial, bionic arm whirring a little from the work. He settled on what sounded like electro swing, and set it at a nice ambient volume.

“So do you like music?” he asked nonchalantly.

“I listen to it,” Carlos said, and mentally kicked himself as soon as the words left his mouth. “You know, songs and stuff. The guitar.”

“Oh yes, the guitar!” Cecil says, too quickly.

_Great job, Carlos,_ he thought, _Foot so far in your mouth, it’s actually still on the ground! It’s a miracle of medicine._

“Did you say something?” Cecil asked.

“Nope!” Carlos said, and gripped the steering wheel tightly. Small talk was never his field. Maybe Cecil, verbose and understanding Cecil, got it, because he folded his hands primly on his lap and looked out the window for a while.

They did not miss their exit. It would have been hard to, seeing as Carlos could see the mountain from miles away. They pulled into the parking lot outside a large wooden gate, and the Station Rust Bucket parks beside. Intern Jo stumbled out, and indicated for Cecil to roll down his window with wide eyes.

“What’s up, Jo?” Cecil asked concerned.

“I think Intern Marsha has Fanny Bryce Approximation Syndrome!” they said in raw panic. “A song from _Wicked_ came up on my driving shuffle, and Marsha hasn’t been able to stop singing every track from the album. It isn’t contagious, is it?”

“It shouldn’t be,” Cecil said, and unbuckled his seatbelt. “Sorry Carlos, I just have to attend to this.”

“Sure,” Carlos said. He found himself following Cecil, a little anxious to see how Fanny Bryce Approximation Syndrome manifested.

Intern Marsha was sitting on the hood of the Station Rust Bucket, belting out lines from _Defying Gravity_ and sobbing openly. Cecil hopped up beside her, and tok her into a strong hug.

“You’re being incredibly brave, darling,” he said gently. “I didn’t think that when I asked you to catalogue the cast albums in the archive this would happen.”

“Look at her! She’s wicked! Get her!” Marsha wailed.

“You can beat this,” Cecil promised, rubbing her back. “I’ll get you my speech therapist from when I had FBAS. She’s quite good. For now, why don’t you try to enjoy yourself? We’ll have a nice picnic, and then we’ll sample some bird calls for next week’s broadcast. Does that sound all right?”

Marsha nodded, sniffling but calming down.

“Should I call your moms?” Cecil asked. Marsha shook her head, and hiccupped. “All right then, why don’t you carry the picnic basket?”

Marsha agreed, with a wavery smile and a Gershwin tune on her lips. Carlos decided on only a little scientific equipment to bring with him personally, but Jo was game to carry some of his larger stuff in their classy messenger bag. Cecil brought only his microphone, leaving all his recording gear in the Station Rust Bucket.

“Are you sure that’s all you’re going to bring with you?” Carlos asked, crooking an eyebrow.

“Oh this is usually all I bring with me. It’s just Station policy that I bring all the equipment,” Cecil said, kicking a rock through the large wooden gates. Carlos doubted this sincerely; Cecil seemed to regard his radio equipment the same way Carloso regarded his science equipment. Mostly unnecessary to take anywhere, but you never know.

“Well, here we are!” Carlos said for the benefit of everyone.

“We are somewhere,” Cecil conceded doubtfully. Everyone stood awkwardly at the base of the mountain. So, with an illustrative gesture, Carlos began to explain.

“Behold,” he said. “A mountain!”

His exclamation was met with stunned silence. Or at least, he thought it was stunned silence until he looked behind him and saw Cecil’s skeptical face and the interns’ twin confused expressions.

“Carlos,” Cecil said in a long-suffering tone. “How eccentric and naïve you are for a man of science!”

From anyone else, Carlos reckoned this reaction would be infuriating. But somehow, when it came from a guy who was wearing a Dayglo green fuzzy vest with matching legwarmers and pink cargo pants, it was endearing. Carlos let his hands drop to the side.

“You don’t think it’s real, huh,” he said.

“Well, it’s certainly quite realistic,” Cecil said, quick to appease. “But, however impressive this obvious manmade structure is, it’s still fake. Probably holograms or something.”

“Holograms are pretty hella,” Intern Jo interjected.

“Well, then, how about we climb the mountain?” Carlos suggested. This seemed to throw Cecil, but he nodded.

“I’m always ready to try new things. Especially new scientific things!” he said.

“Climb every mountain, ford every stream, follow every rainbow, ‘til you find your dream!” Intern Marsha added.

It was a fairly easy trail. Carlos was glad because Cecil had a penchant for stopping every few moments and taking sound samples with his microphone of bird calls, twigs snapping underfoot, and wind through the leaves. Carlos took the time that Cecil made to do some preliminary soil samples (absolutely nothing was radioactive of course).

“This is really quite lovely,” he said, more in his microphone than to anyone else. “Radio station employees such as Jo, Marsha and I relish any opportunity to go outside and commune with nature. Ooooh! A beetle! It’s befriending me! Hey little guy~”

Crouched almost double on the ground, he watched with a bright smile as a largeish beetle crawled up his prosthesis. Carlos found himself smiling and looked around. They weren’t as high as he would have wanted, but if they kept going at this pace it would probably be Tuesday before they got anywhere with a good view.

“Why don’t we settle down here?” he said to Intern Jo, who was doing bark rubbings on a nearby tree.

“Sounds good!” they said, “I’ll just wave down Marsha. Yo Mars! We’re going to stay here!”

Marsha was further ahead on the trail, but came running back with the picnic basket, the large checkered blanket flowing behind her like a gingham supercape. In the basket were slightly smushed sandwiches, lots of fruit and some Capri Suns. There were also little baggies of trail mix that appeared to be eighty per cent m+ms. Cecil took a baggie of trail mix and popped a red one into his mouth.

Jo and Marsha finished eating quickly and started wandering around somewhere else, hands loosely linked and strains of _This Was a Real Nice Clambake_ echoing around them.

“Young love is really one of the most beautiful things,” Cecil said, unsuccessfully trying to punch a hole in his Capri Sun with a straw. “I think… argh, _really, juice box?_ … I think that it’s love that keeps the earth from hurtling into the Void.”

Carlos held his tongue. Cecil probably wasn’t being metaphorical, and to be truthful, Carlos knew little about either astronomy or love.

“Thank you for thinking of me when you went to do science,” Cecil said, finally getting his straw in his Capri Sun. “I appreciate that you did not foist your mountain beliefs on us after your initial proclamation that this is a mountain.”

“Well, it is certainly a very large rock formation,” Carlos said. “And if that’s not a mountain, then I don’t know what is. No offense.”

“I am certainly open-minded enough to concede that this is a manmade very large rock formation. My opinion, however, is that it is not natural,” Cecil explained. “Trail mix?”

Carlos took a couple of m+ms that had a raisin stuck to them from his proffered hand. The sun is beginning to set, way ahead of schedule according to Carlos’ only accurate wristwatch, and Cecil is distracted by the sound the picnic blanket is making against the ground.

Carlos think he might be a little bit in love.


End file.
